Jour: 21 août 2019

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According
to the Jewish Bible the world was created about 6000 years ago.
According to contemporary cosmologists, the Big Bang dates back 14
billion years. But the Universe could actually be older. The Big Bang
is not necessarily the only, original event. Many other universes may
have existed before, in earlier ages.

Time
could go back a long way. This is what Vedic cosmologies teach. Time
could even go back to infinity according to cyclical universe
theories.

In a
famous Chinese Buddhist-inspired novel, The Peregrination to the
West, there is a story of the creation of the world. It describes
the formation of a mountain, and the moment « when the pure
separated from the turbid ». The mountain, called the Mount of
Flowers and Fruits, dominates a vast ocean. Plants and flowers never
fade. « The peach tree of the immortals never ceases to form
fruits, the long bamboos hold back the clouds. » This mountain is
« the pillar of the sky where a thousand rivers meet ». It is
« the unchanging axis of the earth through ten thousand Kalpa. »

An
unchanging land for ten thousand Kalpa.

What is
a kalpa? It is the Sanskrit word used to define the very long
duration of cosmology. To get an idea of the duration of a kalpa,
various metaphors are available. Take a 40 km cube and fill it to the
brim with mustard seeds. Remove a seed every century. When the cube
is empty, you will not yet be at the end of the kalpa. Then take a
large rock and wipe it once a century with a quick rag. When there is
nothing left of the rock, then you will not yet be at the end of the
kalpa.

World
time: 6000 years? 14 billion years? 10,000 kalpa?

We
can assume that these times mean nothing certain.
Just as space is curved, time is curved. The general relativity
theory establishes that objects in the universe tend to move towards
regions where time flows relatively more slowly. A cosmologist, Brian
Greene, put it this way: « In a way, all objects want to age as
slowly as possible. » This trend, from Einstein’s point of view,
is exactly comparable to the fact that objects « fall » when
dropped.

For
objects in the Universe that are closer to the « singularities »
of space-time that proliferate there (such as « black holes »),
time is slowing down more and more. In this interpretation, it is not
ten thousand kalpa that should be available, but billions of billions
of billions of kalpa…

A
human life is only an ultra-fugitive scintillation, a kind of
femto-second on the scale of kalpa, and the life of all humanity is
only a heartbeat. That’s good news! The incredible stories hidden in
a kalpa, the
narratives that time conceals, will never run out. The infinite of
time has its own life.

Mystics,
like Plotin or Pascal, have reported their visions. But their images
of “fire” were never more than snapshots, infinitesimal moments,
compared to the infinite substance from which they emerged.

This
substance,
I’d like to describe it as
a landscape of infinite narratives, an infinite number of mobile
points of view, opening onto an infinite number of worlds, some of
which deserve a detour, and others are
worth the endless
journey.

Gérard
de Nerval was imbued with shamanism and orphism. With its calculated,
ironic and visionary poetry, Voyage en Orient bears witness to
these tropisms.

« They
plunged me three times into the waters of the Cocyte » (Antéros).

The
four rivers of Hell, who can cross their liquid walls? Can a pale
poet cross these bitter barriers, these dark, convulsive masses?

« Et
j’ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l’Achéron,

Modulant
tour à tour sur la lyre d’Orphée

Les
soupirs de la sainte et les cris de la fée.”

(And I
have twice a winner crossed the Acheron

Modulating
in turn on the lyre of Orpheus

The
sighs of the saint and the cries of the fairy.) (El Desdichado)

Nerval’s
work is influenced by the tutelary figure of Orpheus, prince of
poets, lovers and mystics – explorer of the depths.

Orpheus
was dismembered alive by the Bacchae in madness, but continued to
sing from the mouth of his beheaded head. His singing had already
persuaded Hades to let him leave Hell with Eurydice. The condition
was that he did not look at her, until he came out of the world of
the dead. Worried about the silence of the beloved, he turned his
head when they had arrived at the edge of the world of the living. He
lost again, and forever, Eurydice.

Instead
of looking at her, he could have talked to her, held her by the hand,
or inhaled her scent, to make sure she was there? No, he had to see
her, to look at her. As a result, she died.

Why do
heroes want to face Hell?

What
haunts them is whether death is real, or imaginary. What drives them
is the desire to see the loved ones again, though
lost forever. In these difficult
circumstances, they
must acquire special powers, magical abilities. Orpheus’ strengths
were music, song and poetry.

Music
produces, even in Hell, a form, a meaning, and
calls for the poem. Orpheus might
have sung:

Did
Nerval believe in the breath of the sibyl, in the order of the day?

Orpheus,
Nerval, prophetic poets.

During
the Renaissance, Marsile Ficin presented Orpheus as an explorer of
Chaos and a theologian of love.

« Orpheus
in Argonautics imitating the Theology of Mercury Trismegist, when he
sings the principles
of things in the presence of Chiron and the heroes, that is, angelic
men, he puts
Chaos before the world, & before Saturn, Iupiter and the other
gods, and within
Chaos, he welcomes Love, saying Love is very ancient, by itself
perfect, of great counsel. Plato in Timaeus similarly describes
Chaos, and here puts Love. »i

Chaos
is before the gods, – before the very sovereign God, Jupiter. And in
Chaos, there is Love!

« Finally,
in all of us, Love accompanies Chaos, and precedes the world, excites
the things that sleep, illuminates the dark ones: gives life to the
dead things: forms the unformed, and gives perfection to the
imperfect. »
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This
« good news » was first announced by Orpheus.

« But
the unique invisible perpetual light of the divine Sun, by its
presence, always gives comfort, life and perfection to all things. Of
what divinely sang Orpheus, saying:

God the
Eternal Love all things comforts

And on
all of them is spread, animated and supported. »

Orpheus
bequeathed to humanity these simple pearls: « Love is more
ancient and younger than other Gods ». « Love is the
beginning and the end. He is the first and last of the gods. »

Finally,
Ficin specifies the figure of the last of all the gods: « There
are therefore four kinds of divine fury. The first is the Poetic
Fury. The second is the Mystical, that is, the Sacred.
The third is Divination.
The fourth is the Affection of Love. Poetry depends on the Muses: The
Mystery of Bacchus: The Deviation of Apollo: & The Love of Venus.
Certainly Soul cannot return to unity unless it becomes unique. »
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